Your Right to Know

DELAWARE, Ohio — Delaware County will spend about $14.1 million to purchase a vacant
wastewater-treatment plant in the southwestern part of the county, the county’s board of
commissioners decided yesterday.

In a unanimous vote, the three-person board agreed to bail out the Lower Scioto Water
Reclamation Facility, which was built four years ago off Dublin Road in Concord Township to handle
wastewater from subdivisions that were never built. It had been a financial drain on both the
county and a separate government body created to oversee the plant.

The commissioners’ vote means that the plant, which has sat empty and unused, could be
operational within the next few years because the county is considering rerouting some sewage to
it. But if new homes are built around it, that could happen sooner, said Tiffany Jenkins, Delaware
County’s director of environmental services.

It also means that, after the documents are signed today, Delaware County will own the plant
outright. The plant had been owned by a community authority created to oversee construction and
operation of the plant and development in that area.

The switch means that developers and investors who bought into the plant will be paid back. The
community authority had been behind on its payments to those investors, even though several of the
investors have seats on the community authority.

Delaware’s commissioners said yesterday that they felt they had no choice but to purchase the
plant.

“It will mitigate the current situation, it will preserve the facilities, and it’s in the best
interest of the county,” said board President Ken O’Brien.

Delaware County already has paid nearly $18.5 million toward the plant. In addition, the county
settled earlier this year with Kokosking Construction Co., which had built the plant. Delaware
County agreed to pay about $2 million more to Kokosing because it had argued that the county hadn’t
finished paying for the facility.

Commissioner Gary Merrell said Delaware’s purchase will help get things on track.

“We had a situation that we needed to correct,” Merrell said. “How we got here ... is less
important than how we act going forward.”